


Still Immersed

by thepigeon



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Brief mentions of blood & vomiting & eye trauma, M/M, Oral Sex, Trans Male Character, Trans Newton Geiszler, handjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-05-15 12:14:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14790336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepigeon/pseuds/thepigeon
Summary: Hermann saved Newt's life and helped win the war. Now he finally has time to spend with him and consider what he's learned.





	Still Immersed

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to here4thegays, Raven_At_The_Writing_Desk and Alexanderbadass for the beta-read!

The first few hours after the end of the war were not particularly romantic.

There was the general chaos, for one thing, as technicians swarmed through the entire Shatterdome and triaged the extensive physical damage. There were the ruined Jaegers to recover, helicopters screaming away towards the blue horizon as they hunted for the weak signals from the ocean floor. Then of course there were the official incident interviews to conduct and the medical tests to run, because Dr. Hermann Gottlieb had performed a highly inadvisable operation involving a hostile alien being to help the man he loved and that was only third most bizarre event to have occurred the last 48 hours.

He sat in the infirmary now, an overworked medic giving him a vision test after putting him through god knows how many neurological examinations. He had still not brushed his teeth after vomiting several hours ago and he felt like he was coated in several inches of grime. He caught himself bouncing his leg, a nervous tic he'd never had before last night. He glanced at the only other patient in the room, Dr. Newton Geiszler, bouncing his own leg and worrying at the sleeves of his shredded jacket as he waited for Hermann to be discharged. The fidgeting, yes, that was Newt's, but the way he closed his eyes and breathed steadily to ground himself, well. That was not. His face was dotted with bandages, cracked glasses askew. He smelled foul. Hermann wanted to kiss him, badly.

The tension that had existed between them for so long took on a new dimension after the Drift. Hermann had heard the Rangers describing a post-Drift sensation keeping the pilots connected, but had never been able to visualize it. Now he felt as though he were watching everyone around him walk by while he himself was suspended in water, his hair and clothes drifting in a current nobody else could feel. Except for Newt.

Hermann snapped back to attention as he realized he was receiving permission to leave, provided that he return tomorrow for more tests, and Hermann leaned heavily on his cane as he rose. Newt trotted to his side, breaking into one of the running soliloquies that Hermann had grown accustomed to - as least until he had found a point over which they could bicker together.

"I think our eyes have been through enough already, right? Did they make you do the puffer machine? Where they blast the air right on your eyeball? I _hate_ that thing, dude! We should have _way_ more effective devices than that by now, I mean we have holograms and shit, and I deffo remember conducting a 3D scan of one of Taurax's eyes - "

"I recall that week in the lab as being particularly unpleasant."

"Yeah, well, you weren't the one ass-deep in vitreous humor, Hermann."

"Fluids have a habit of following the laws of physics and spilling past the bounds of your lab space, _Newton._ I had to resole that pair of shoes."

They were taking the path that led them back to the residential wing. Out of the corner of his vision clusters of light and darkness flitted past like schools of fish, unnoticed by the other technicians shuffling through the passageway. They reached the hallway leading to Hermann's quarters and Newt slowed.

"I'm, uh. Gonna dash to my place, get some fresh clothes."

Hermann paused, and realized that they had never discussed their plans aloud. It seemed only logical that Newt would spend the night in his quarters before they returned to the infirmary tomorrow, though he couldn't explain further why that felt so logical. Aside from the long-standing attraction he felt for his lab partner, it felt wrong to be too far apart from him at this moment, to be alone in the sea. He felt relief that at least Newt felt a similar compulsion, as he watched the small man scurry down the next corridor.

In his exhaustion Hermann struggled to push the thick door open and he left it ajar so Newt could get in, all while shedding his coat and shoes with uncharacteristic untidiness. He ran the shower immediately, trying to coax out the hot water while he assembled a stack of sleeping clothes. Newt emerged in the door frame, clothes and toothbrush in hand, shoving the door closed with an emphatic swing of his hip. Hermann's mind juddered over the idea of his _hips_ and nodded to the shower.

"You smell abhorrent. Use the shower first. I have a basket prepared for our clothes as well as any other industrial waste you might have lying about." Newt snickered, kicking off his boots and tearing off his jacket as he crossed to the bathroom. Hermann lingered long enough to spot the rolled-up shirt sleeves and the tattoos wrapping around Newt's arms, and he recalled the foreign memory he was immersed in only hours ago of just how far up they go. He brushed his teeth in the kitchen sink, more aggressively than was perhaps necessary.

He passed Newt on the way into the bathroom as Newt finished rolling down his fresh tshirt, permitting himself a momentary glance at the shock of color snaking across his biceps and cresting along the edge of his neck. He turned away, focusing instead on the still-warm water of the shower, wiping the caked blood from his nose, running his thumb along the handrail as he heard the shrill whine of the tea kettle in the kitchenette. "Thoughtful," he murmured, as he ran his hair under the water, permitting nothing else to drift across his mind.

He securely tied his bathrobe over his soft cotton shirt and pajama pants and tentatively peered out into the studio apartment. A teacup wafted steam from atop his nightstand, but he didn't see Newt till he had fully rounded the corner and found him crosslegged on the lumpy secondhand couch across from the bed, pouring sugar into his own mug.

"I'd suggest you not spend the night there," Hermann advised. "Your spine'll be in ruins tomorrow."

"I've crashed in worse places," said Newt, sloshing his teaspoon in the tea-sugar slurry he had created. He had carelessly toweled his hair so that it was drying in uneven peaks, small beads of water dripping along his jawline. Hermann roved his eyes towards his own cup, scooping it up as his perched on the edge of his bed, but emphatically patted a space further down the mattress.

"Sit with me a while longer, at least. It seemed to do you good, back in the infirmary."

Newt paused for only an instant before he rose from the couch and joined him on the bed, sipping his tea. They sat like this for some time, peacefully if not quietly, for Newt filled up the space with soft chatter about Hermann's herbal tea selection and how old some of them must certainly be - "I mean, I don't think they've manufactured Cranberry Dreams since _Hardship_ made landfall, dude" - and Hermann let his scratchy voice wash over him like the tide. They drained their mugs, and he silently took Newt's empty one and set them both on his nightstand. He turned back in time to catch Newt's hand still extended, the ring on his little finger glinting in the light. His shirt had holes in the collar and some kind of cheeky skeleton design emblazoned across the front. Green boxers. His nails were nibbled short but his hands smelled - well, he didn't have the vague odors that perpetually hung around his half of the lab. Ammonia and too-old fish. He smelled like clean skin, but something else he'd never been close enough to detect before.

Newt's voice had trailed off. Hermann came to himself and glanced up, saw Newt's eyes inches from his own, green through the red of the broken blood vessels. Hermann leaned forward, closed the gap.

Newt let out a small gasp and then leaned into the kiss, pressed himself closer. For once, he said nothing, only moved. They fumbled together for a minute towards the head of the bed, until Newt dove in for a deeper kiss and the back of Hermann's head brushed the wall. Squeezed as closely together as they were, Hermann saw just the edges of Newt's grin, felt the glide of his hand to the collar of Hermann's robe. He peeled it off, slid the callused pad of his thumb under the shirt, brushing bare skin, electrifying him. Newt rested his weight on Hermann's good leg and straddled his thigh.

Hermann watched the swirls of ink move beneath the fraying holes of Newt's collar and slid his hands upward to remove the shirt, revealing the sections of the garish tattoo he'd never seen in person before. Kaiju limbs and tails curved up from his hips up over his soft stomach, spreading across his chest and lapping at his collarbone. Almost without thought Hermann leaned in further and pressed his mouth against his neck, inhaling that elusive scent, letting his hands trail down again, and then further down still.

He felt Newt tense beneath his fingers and glanced up. Newt's face was frozen in an uneasy smile, chewing his lower lip.

"Have I done something wrong?" Hermann asked, abashed. Had Newt not wanted it to go this far? Had Hermann been too presumptuous? God, he was a fool. How could he ever think -

"No, I, um," Newt began, faltered, then tried again. "Y- you know my deal, right?"

Hermann was at a loss at to what aspect of Newt's "deal" he could possibly mean at the moment, for he could identify several quirks, eccentricities, and conflicts that Newt wrapped around himself like a storm cloud, sowing discord in his wake. But as he felt the clusters of Drift memories waft past him, he began to piece together images and feelings into coherent thoughts -

_\- the messy chop of the scissors, the hair going every which way on the head of the scrawny teenager dwarfed by his classmates at MIT -_

_\- the controlled chaos of his life that nonetheless bore some routine - the pills chased with the swig of Monster, the shot in the muscle of the left leg this week, the right the next -_

_\- the exhilaration of the stage, the keyboard, the microphone as night after night he could feel his voice split and drop and change, become better, become itself -_

"I do." Hermann murmured, mouth still pressed against his neck. Newt swallowed thickly.

"So I've still got my, uh. Original equipment."

Hermann considered this, raising his head and making eye contact. "I'm certain I can manage whatever you'd ask of me. Although I daresay I'm in no position to claim expertise in much of anything in the, er, equipment department."

Newt stared at him, then burst out laughing. " _Fuck_ , dude! Even when you're being cool you sound like a total _ding-dong_."

"Oh, do be quiet," Hermann grumbled, but smiled as he felt the tension melt from Newt's body and ran his lips across the stubble along his jaw. Newt tilted his head and caught him in another kiss, deeper this time, unhurried. "What would you have me do?"

"Y-You've got me going already," Newt stammered, rocking his hips on Hermann's thigh. "But it'd be cool if you touched me. With your fingers." His tongue darted over his lower lip for a split second and Hermann had to forcefully wrench that image from his mind so he could concentrate on the current task. Distracting man.

"May I take these off?" he gestured to the boxers. Newt nodded vigorously. They switched positions so that Newt was beneath him now, lying flat between Hermann's legs. Hermann slid off the boxers, running his fingers up Newt's thigh, and followed the swirls of ink with his glance, past the hip bones and reaching their end just before the pubic mound. He grazed over the hair and pressed softly until he reached skin. "Keep going?"

"Mm hm," Newt breathed. Hermann felt slick wetness - so this was what people meant when they wrote about this sort of thing - but hesitated at exploring further. Newt noticed, and laid his fingers alongside Hermann's.

"So that hood thing right there, by your thumb? That's where my cock is. No, don't touch it, not yet. Slide a little further down and go inside me first. Two fingers. Nope, nope, nope, that's too far down, bud!" He cracked up, gently swatting Hermann's hand away from his taint. But Newt stopped chuckling when he glanced at his partner's face. "This is freaking you out. I should've figured, listen -"

"Let me think," Hermann muttered. "I don't want to spoil this." He sank onto the mattress beside him, resting his chin on his hand, considering solutions, alternatives, when he caught a fresh trace of the scent. On his fingers.

"Perhaps I'll have better sense of what I'm doing if I use my mouth," he hummed softly. "Better control. Less margin for error." He glanced at Newt, whose lips were parted, pupils so dilated that his eyes were now almost black. But as he watched, a familiar lopsided grin crawled across his face, and Hermann was reminded of the time Newt had caught him mouthing equations during a lunch break, silently working his way through algorithmic trace tables to alleviate boredom. Oh, that wouldn't do, not at all.

"I mean, I won't stop you." Newt was still grinning widely. "I'll yell at you if you go too far south again, though."

"We'll see about that," Hermann said, perhaps a little too indignantly, but he got between Newt's legs again and rested on his stomach, pulling himself closer to press a hard kiss to Newt's hipbone.

Newt sucked in a breath and Hermann brushed his nose against the tufts of hair, adrift in the warm scent of Newt's arousal. He touched his lips to the soft flesh he found and pressed his tongue flat against it, pulled it upwards. He felt a tug as Newt's fingers wrapped themselves in his still-damp hair, guided him upwards toward the hood.

"Circles," Newt whispered hoarsely. "Slow but firm."

Hermann complied, circling Newt's cock with his tongue while subconsciously rubbing circles with his thumbs on Newt's soft inner thighs. He could hear Newt's heavy breathing, murmuring quietly but nonstop. Encouragement, enjoyment, exclamations about his hands, his _mouth_ \- He could feel his tongue begin to tire, but planted a rough kiss on the thigh and resumed his work.

"Fingers - " Newt was panting now.

"Two?"

"Two."

Hermann tilted the angle of his chin, giving access to his fingers. He understood the geography here better now, and found the spot that gave way under slight pressure to let him in. It was slick and warm, but with intriguing variations in texture, and Hermann's fingertips hovered over a spot that made Newt moan and run his mouth in a louder, throatier voice than before. He was speaking English, certainly, but with snippets of German in a dialect so bizarre to Hermann's ear he almost failed to recognize it.

 _Berliners_ , he scoffed, roughly palming his erection with his free hand while curling the fingers of his occupied one. He wrapped his mouth around Newt's cock and sucked, the taste coating his tongue, the back of his throat. Newt tightened his grip in his hair, his back arching off the mattress, the kaiju a blur of distant, furious color. "Hermann - " he gasped. " _Hermann_ \- "

As Newt sank back down on the mattress, Hermann felt it, the muscles contracting around him in fervent, rhythmic pulses in time with Newt's shuddering breaths. Entranced, Hermann stayed inside him, wiping his mouth on Newt's soft, uninked skin, watching the other man lie back, eyes closed, face flushed, as his breathing slowed. He opened one eye, then the other, then slowly fixed them on Hermann, smile broad and messy like ink blooming on wet paper.

"Not bad, nerd. C'mere."

"I should - I should brush my teeth, wash my face - " He should touch himself right now, he couldn't wait a second longer with Newt's gaze on him, couldn't _bear_ it -

"No, lemme do this. Get on top of me." He extended his hand but Hermann didn't need it, crawling up the bed, wrapping his legs around Newt's, ignoring the twinge in his hip and reeling instead from the sensation of his prick dragging against Newt's stomach through thick flannel. Agony.

Newt yanked his pants down and freed him, but instead of sliding his hand over the shaft - god, _please_ \- he angled Hermann's hips so he pressed against Newt's own flushed cock. He wrapped his fingers at the base, in Hermann's curls.

"Now," Newt slurred, and Hermann thrust wildly, guided by the groove of Newt's labia and the steady grip of his hand. The sensation of his ring's warm metal grazing the skin made Hermann shudder and press his forehead against Newt's, while Newt murmured feverishly: "That's it, man, that's - _ssssssüß_ \- you're so - so _fffffucking hot_ , c'mon, c'mon, _c'mon_ \- "

Hermann came on his stomach, surrounded by the inked swirls that cordoned off the kaiju from the rest of his body. His glance flickered over his mess, the monsters, up to Newt's face, hair askew, smile 4000 lumens bright. The sheer enormity of what he had done, what they had done, how much had changed in the last 48 hours, was beginning to encroach upon his thoughts and sink into his bones.

"I think I will... lie down now," Hermann mumbled before he collapsed gracelessly on his side. Newt leaned over and brushed the damp hair from his forehead - a deliberate, gentle gesture he never would have expected from the man before he let him peer into his mind - and kissed him before untangling himself and climbing out of bed.

"Good plan. I'm gonna clean up." He paused, turned, rimmed with a blue aura from a light source Hermann couldn't immediately discern. "Hey, wanna hear something wild? Would you believe that my lab partner - the one who's always yelling at me and moving all my shit - would you believe that he saved my life and blew a load on me all in the span of like, a weekend?"

"He sounds like a profoundly erratic individual," Hermann drawled into the pillow.

"He's a real pervert. I'm gonna have to file a report on him. More tea?"

"More tea."

And so they carried on for the rest of the night, lounging in the flickering lights and foreign murky shadows of the Drift, watching the memories pass and coalesce as the tide went slowly out.


End file.
